Trust this man to be back in the news. After being snubbed by the court for his “non-maintainable and useless” petition seeking action against Lord Rama for exiling his wife Sita to a forest, he has decided to take the case to the next level.

“All I wanted from the court was justice for Goddess Sita who spent 14 years with Lord Rama in the forest during the period of vanvas. It was Rama who was asked to go on vanvas by his father Dashratha yet Sita agreed to join him. Still Ram treated her so shabbily, and this hurts me a lot. Sita hailed from Mithila and I, too, am from Mithila. It is natural that I have a soft corner for her,” lawyer Thakur Chandan Kumar Singh told Firstpost.

The 31-year-old lawyer practises at Sitamarhi district court. Siatamarhi, a north Bihar district bordering Nepal, is named after Sita since it is considered her birth place.

Thakur Chandan Kumar Singh

According to him, the exiling of Sita is a perfect case of “domestic violence” and this indeed deserves legal attention. “Had Sita been delivered justice, the cases of domestic violence would have drastically come down in the country as nobody would have dared to maltreat his wife,” said the lawyer, adding, “Justice to Sita would have meant justice to the entire women class, and not only this particular epic character.”

He is unhappy at the court for not accepting the case for hearing. “I had gone there for justice but was driven away. Kam se kam accept to karte,” he said, adding the issue merited a national debate since it concerned the rights of a woman. He denied it had anything to do with hurting sentiments of a particular community.

Asked how did he expect the court to deliver justice since the case is very, very old and also there is no witness to testify, he said, “The court could have done a favour by christening a particular place in Ayodhya as Mithila Nagari as a token of justice to Sita.”

He denied that his motive was to gain cheap media publicity. “I respect the court’s decision to reject my petition but the issue deserves a full-throated national debate.”

He, however, said that he had not lost the fight. “I will think about the next course of action after having a look at the rejection order,” he declared, ignoring frequent threats coming from Hindu organsisations and his fellow lawyers as well. At least three separate cases have been filed against the lawyer for “tarnishing the image of Lord Rama and hurting the religious sentiments of the Hindus”. The angry lawyers have also demanded cancellation of his licence and lodging of a contempt case against him for filing a “baseless case” and spoiling precious time of the court when millions of cases demand attention.

However, this is not the lone case the man has brought to the notice of the court during his some 16-month-long tenure as a practising lawyer in Sitamarhi district court. Prior to this, he had filed cases against National Conference leader Farooq Abdullah, former RJD minister Raghuvansh Prasad Singh, Patidar leader Hardik Patel and Radhe Maa, the self-styled God-woman.

The former J&K chief minister earned his ire for his alleged statement that the entire force of India can’t tackle terrorists while the RJD leader angered him for his remark that “sages used to eat beef”.